What it does
Recreates risograph printing: a few bold ink colors layered on paper, each slightly out of register.
A risograph is a stencil duplicator, a machine that looks like a photocopier but behaves like a screen printer. It prints one color at a time from a drum of real ink, so a multicolor print means running the same sheet through again for every color. The paper never lands in exactly the same place twice, and that misregistration is not a flaw to hide; it is the aesthetic.
Riso has its own color vocabulary. Instead of cyan-magenta-yellow-black process printing, riso shops stock named spot inks like fluorescent pink, federal blue, and teal, and designs are built from two, three, or four of them. This effect works the same way: each ink renders its own plate of the image, evaluated as how much that ink darkens the paper, and the plates stack subtractively on a paper tone the way real ink overprints.
The texture comes from the process too. Ink coverage mottles because density is never uniform, and tonal transitions break into stipple or dot patterns rather than smooth gradients. Push the registration and the layers drift apart into full poster abstraction; keep it tight and it reads as a well-run print. Because it all renders per frame, the riso look also runs on video, which no actual risograph will ever do.
Signature looks
Zine spread
Two inks, honest misregistration, visible mottle on warm paper. The photocopied-with-love look of a small-press zine.
Gallery poster
Three inks in a loud combination, tight registration, clean stipple in the fades. Bold flat fields that read across a room.
Drifted plates
Registration pushed until the inks separate into offset ghosts. The print mistake promoted to the whole composition.
Try it on your own footage
This effect runs live in the Modulate editor, free with no signup — or start from the free tool page for a guided setup.
Common questions
What is a risograph effect?
A risograph effect simulates riso stencil printing: the image is separated into a few bold spot-ink layers, each layer prints as flat color with mottled coverage and stippled tonal transitions, and the layers sit slightly out of register on a paper tone, the way real riso passes never quite align.
What is the difference between riso and screen printing?
Both print one spot color per pass, which is why they share an aesthetic. A risograph automates the process through a stencil wrapped around an ink drum, making it much faster and cheaper per print, but with less precision, thinner ink laydown, and the characteristic drift between layers.
Is a risograph effect just CMYK halftone?
No. CMYK halftone reproduces the original colors of an image through four process inks at fixed screen angles. Riso rebuilds the image in a chosen palette of named spot inks, usually two or three, so the colors are an interpretation rather than a reproduction. That reduction is most of the charm.
Why are riso prints misaligned?
Each color means another pass through the machine, and the paper feed shifts slightly every time, so layers land a millimeter or two apart. Riso culture embraces the drift as proof of process, and a digital riso effect exposes it as a control instead of hiding it.
Can I apply a riso effect to video?
Digitally, yes. The ink separation, mottle, and stipple re-render every frame, so footage plays through the print. In Modulate the Riso effect runs live on images and video in the editor, with ink presets, per-ink registration, and paper color, and it stacks with grain and halftone.
Related effects
Halftone effect
Turns the image into printed dot patterns, from single-color newspaper dots to full four-ink color screens.
Dither effect
Early computer graphics look: the image is rebuilt from tiny dot patterns and a limited color palette.
Posterize effect
Collapses smooth gradients into a few flat tonal bands for a screen-printed, cel-shaded look. Band per channel or by brightness, with a gamma bias to push the steps toward shadows or highlights.